


Standing in the Rain

by Eloquy



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Cemetery, Gen, Hallucinations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-16
Updated: 2011-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-27 10:11:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloquy/pseuds/Eloquy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after Wilson's Heart (4x16). It's raining. And rain makes people think. Even House.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Standing in the Rain

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first House fic, written quite a while ago. I'm still not sure if it's good or not (or even in character).  
> It was originally written in French, but I translated it recently. However, if there are any mistakes/wrong turns of phrase, please tell me, I'll be happy to correct them :)
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!

Time often goes in a funny way.

Most of the time, it goes as we would imagine it goes. In a normal way, going hand in hand with our lives. Sometimes, it goes faster. To the point where we can only run after it, desperately hoping to slow it down. And, some other times, it goes very slowly. So slowly that you don't even notice it's right here.

As slowly as when you realize you're soaking wet without having any clue of how long you have been walking in the rain.

House was in the rain. House was soaking wet.  
And he had lost all sense of time.

He could feel an icy cold creeping up his spine, the drops slowly dripping from his fingers to glide along his cane. And yet, he couldn't bring himself to move. Couldn't decide to just leave.  
Couldn't tear his eyes away from the gravestone standing in front of him.

 

Well, it was more him, standing in front of it. Because gravestones don't move. They are immutable. They are definitive.  
All the more definitive that he himself had planted this one into the earth. Metaphorically speaking.

 

The drops where running relentlessly over the shiny marble. House was following their path, which invariably ended by reaching the name engraved in the stone. Black letters, harsh letters. Letters that were bearing a clear accusation.

Letters conjuring up the presence of someone who would never be here again.

 

The irony of the whole thing nearly elicited a wry grin from the doctor. She was dead, and everyone was doing their best to give the illusion that she was still there. They put a stone to replace her, so that you could come and see her. Talk to her, bring her some flowers.

But a piece of marble was not a real person.

As Amber Volakis was not a real person anymore.

 

And it was him, House, who had built this stone. Him who had changed the real person to stone. He was such a blatant, evident antithesis of Pygmalion.

 

Everything he went close to had always been deeply altered. Some times in a good way, most of the times in a bad way. The good times were for the people he didn't know, his patients, mostly. The bad times, they were for the people he was close to. Maybe too close.

Like Amber.

Or Wilson.

 

Wilson whom he had betrayed in the most horrible way. Wilson whom he will never dare to face again. Wilson for whom he was in this cemetery today, getting soaked to the core by this unearthly downpour.

 

Because he thought... no, because he was persuaded that it was the least he could do. Even if there wasn't really a point. Because nobody would see him here. Nobody would know he was there. And for everyone, he would stay this insensitive bastard that never showed any remorse.

 

Without daring to admit it to himself, even though he knew it, House was also conscious that he did came here in the hope of finding his best friend. To be able to tell him how sorry he was. Without a word, because House doesn’t know how to say these kind of things. But at least make him understand.

 

But he was alone. Amongst the multitude of ever falling drops, he was alone.

 

He had come to wonder if, in the end, it would have been maybe easier to stay on the bus, where everything was simple and comfortable. Where there was someone by his side. Where there was no rain, no pain and no loneliness.  
And where betrayal was something he could no longer do anything about it.

 

Lost in his thoughts, he jumped sharply when a light hand came to rest on his wet shoulder. Petrified, he didn't dare turning his head to identify the newcomer.

 

He already knew. He didn't want to see her.

 

But he couldn't help hearing her when she whispered softly in his ear.

 

"What is great with buses, it's that there will always be one coming later. And there is plenty of things to do in the meantime."

 

He held his breath when blonde soaked hair brushed his jaw, and couldn't bring himself to watch the pale silhouette, slowly fading away amongst the cemetery trees.

 

House stayed here, under the never-ending rain. Stayed, wondering when, for the love of God, these hallucinations would cease.  
When he would stop feeling guilty.

 

A small, insidious voice whispered the answer in his mind.

 

'Never"


End file.
